"Is this the person I'll share Happily Ever After with? Could this be The One?" I see many people go into dates and relationships with these thoughts foremost in their minds. Everything their potential partner does is colored with this filter. And it hides a single sobering yet freeing truth.
Every relationship ends. Whether by choice, incompatibility, or old age, no relationship is permanent.
This lets us reevaluate what relationship means. Frequently, the desire to have a partner in perpetuity hides a fear of being alone. When we have an underlying belief that we are not enough to love ourselves, we seek someone who completes us, even though we are the only person who can do that.
If we see ourselves as beautiful people who can enjoy the presence of another without needing it, then recognizing the impermanence of relationships is freeing. It relieves us from the pressure of making something work that just isn't. It allows us to enjoy what is happening with our partner, and make plans for tomorrow, while helping us accept if those plans go awry.
Every relationship has a purpose. In some cases, a relationship will teach us how to see the world a little differently, through our lover's eyes. Or it may teach us about ourselves. Every relationship we have can help us expand what it means to be in a relationship, so that the next relationship is that much richer.
But once that purpose is fulfilled, the relationship ends. We can feel it. The cord snaps that holds us together, and the feeling dies. Once that happens, the relationship changes. There's no longer an attachment. Friendship can come next, or a simple farewell, but if we try to sustain it beyond that point, resentment grows in place of the love that's absent.
This isn't to say that we should simply look for short-term flings. We may end up in a relationship that lasts for the rest of our lives. The key is that the length of the relationship is secondary to its breadth and depth. Each relationship teaches us more about relationships. And, at some point, we might hit a relationship that will last until death does us part. But we won't know that until we are in it. We'll go from relationship to relationship until we hit the one where we say, "Oh. I guess I'm done."
But as long as we are looking for a relationship to last forever, we'll be disappointed regularly. It shows up after we don't need it. And that happens when we're happy with the one relationship we'll always have: the one with ourselves. Until that point, our relationships can only help us learn more about ourselves, helping us reach that point.
So it's alright for relationships to end. They have to, to create room for better relationships.
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